MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | The Spanish National Statistical Institute has recently published May’s CPI. The chart shows the 0.1% annual variation with respect to May 2013. Such variations determine a curious outcome on the price level, as the second chart exhibits.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | What good does it do a falling debt if nominal GDP is increasing? According to the Real World Economy in Greece, the households’ debt went as shown in the chart. That is, the nominal value of the existing debt has dropped, but it has increased in relation to the income or the GDP with which it is paid. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the best expression of the Debt Deflation concept.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | Experts at Afi made an analysis of the US’ labour market to forecast a possible turn in the economic policy. The answer is that such market is yet far from standardization. We can see three different moments according to the standard deviation in the chart above.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | The ECB spoke up on Thursday during one of its most expected conclaves. For months, the European institution had been announcing expansive measures if things didn’t change, and it finally made a move. How should we interpret it? Let’s see first why the central bank had to do something “special.”
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | The ECB’s Thursday upcoming meeting will be historical for the EU economy. Any move will mean some easing, even if it will be very difficult that it reactivates the euro zone. What it should definitely do is to massively buy public debt, removing it from financial assets for the banks to find fresh liquid assets as well as capital gains to cover its holes and thus cut interests of private sector’s credit.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | Despite Italy’s PM Matteo Renzi is the only one fighting the hard EU economic line, Italian public debt reaches 135% of GDP. The country is required by the fiscal compact to return to 60% in 20 years, which would involve perpetual austerity for an entire generation at least. However, the problem does not only affect Italy but all the European Southern countries.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | Spanish 1Q GDP was released on Friday. Data were shameful and let me explain you why: in order to reduce the public deficit, the government transfered 2013 4Q public spending to 2014 1Q. So these last numbers are those they had tried to hide under the carpet. In the graph above, the blue and line represent private and public consumption, respectively.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | You cannot control financial stability and real economy with just one instrument. I guess the Fed is hoping for excesses to get fixed by themselves, but macro-prudential policy is failing again. Markets are giving their backs to reality. The bad news is that a sudden stop would put us all in hell.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | You probably know Jaime Caruana. He is an inept who ignored the warning signals of the Spanish bubble although as the central bank governor he was the main responsible for it. And now that he is the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) head and Spain’s housing prices have declined by 40% on average according to property valuer Tinsa, he disregards deflation risks.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does the credit decrease because the demand is weak or because banks don’t offer any? Requirements imposed by banks to lend money (excluding to the public administrations) are aggressive both in real and collateral interest rates. Meanwhile, the possibility that the ECB increased rates would further collapse bank credit.